The City of Norman has announced litigation against the architects and builders of its doomed $39 million library, which closed in November after four years of operation due to widespread mold. Perhaps Norman will have more success going on offense than the University of Oklahoma has had so far in the Southeastern Conference.
Former congressional candidate Paul Bondar also filed a lawsuit recently. Bondar is suing three media groups and a PAC for defamation over reports that he does not live in Oklahoma and has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile, the Oklahoma Ethics Commission had a busy meeting Friday, approving a settlement agreement with a state bureaucrat who violated impartiality rules, granting a sitting representative an extra 30 days to file an amended campaign expense report and walking back extra fees the commission had issued to lobbyists in violation of state statute.
Read about all of that — and more — in this roundup.
Paul Bondar lawsuit alleges defamation by media, PAC
Former political candidate Paul Bondar is seeking more than $10 million in alleged damages from Gannett, Nexstar Media Group, ABC News and the Americans 4 Security PAC for defamation he claims to have faced while trying to unseat Oklahoma’s most powerful congressman.
Bondar spent millions of his own dollars to flood airwaves with advertising as he pursued the GOP nomination for Oklahoma’s 4th Congressional District. But while Bondar spent weeks assailing incumbent Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK4) for his long tenure in Congress, he only finished with 25.8 percent of the June 18 Republican vote. Cole, the current chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, won his party’s nomination with 64.6 percent support.
During the campaign, Cole was boosted and Bondar was blasted by the Americans 4 Security Super PAC, which ran ads mocking the challenger’s ritzy Dallas lifestyle, tailing him at motel stops and instructing voters, “Don’t buy Bondar’s Texas bull.”
According to his Sept. 24 filed in the district court of Cook County, Illinois — where his insurance company has been headquartered — Bondar is suing Gannett because The Oklahoman reported that Bondar was living in a condominium owned by a man with connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bondar is suing Nexstar because the news outlet reported that it could not confirm Bondar was a resident of Oklahoma. An ABC News affiliate also reported that “Bondar’s wife may have a loose connection to a Russian pop star who has received awards from Putin — a tie that Bondar’s campaign rejects.”
In his lawsuit petition, Bondar claims a “loss” of $6 million he “invested” into his ill-fated run for Congress. In the suit, Bondar claims to be a resident of Oklahoma and denies having any connection with Putin.
Bondar also claims the reporting damaged an ongoing business relationship with Alera Group, Inc., an insurance conglomerate that purchased Bondar Insurance Group in 2021. Bondar has remained with the company as a managing partner of the subsidiary bearing his surname.
“Alera threatened to terminate its relationship with (the) plaintiff and to rescind a portion of the prior sale because of the false and negative media reporting and the resulting public relations fallout and effect on Alera’s stock price,” the lawsuit alleges. “[Bondar] suffered severe mental and emotional distress as a result of the same, as well as damage to his business reputation, and [Bondar’s] business relationship with Alera was significantly damaged as a result of the defamatory statements.”
Cook County’s court system shows the defendants were served with the lawsuit in early October and that an initial court date has been scheduled for Nov. 27.
Ethics Commission fines state’s chief information officer
The official in charge of developing and implementing information technology and telecommunications initiatives for the state has been fined $2,500 for violating Oklahoma’s ethics rules.
On Friday, the Oklahoma Ethics Commission approved a settlement agreement with Joe McIntosh, chief information officer for the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services. The commission found he violated two ethics rules, one dealing with state officer impartiality and the other addressing misuse of office by a state officer.
As part of the settlement, McIntosh must pay the money within 60 days to the state’s General Revenue Fund. The settlement notes he has no previous ethics rules violations and that corrective measures have been established, including that he no longer has oversight, control or decision making, or takes part in any manner regarding contracts entered between the state and his wife’s employer or any of its subsidiaries. If his spouse changes jobs, McIntosh agrees in the settlement to ensure similar measures with that employer.
The agreement takes into account that he self-reported the incidents to OMES and to the Ethics Commission’s executive director.
McIntosh must attend an Ethics Commission continuing education training program related to conflicts of interest within one year. He attended ethics training within OMES in the past two months, according to the settlement.
In other matters, commissioners agreed to give State Rep. Ajay Pittman another 30 days to file amended campaign reports as a result of a May settlement agreement in which she admitted spending nearly $18,000 of campaign funds for her personal use instead of campaign purposes as intended by donors.
Pittman (D-OKC) agreed to use personal funds to reimburse her 2020 and 2022 campaign accounts $17,848.22. On top of that, she agreed to pay a fine of $17,141.78 to the state’s General Revenue Fund. She paid $5,000 from her personal funds to her 2020 and 2022 campaign accounts as required on May 31. By May 31, 2025, Pittman has agreed to pay $12,000 to her 2022 campaign account. And by May 31, 2026, Pittman must pay $858.22 to her 2022 campaign account and $17,141.78 in a civil penalty.
Pittman, who is unopposed in next month’s general election, won reelection to the House District 99 seat in Oklahoma’s June 18 Democratic primary.
The Ethics Commission has required Pittman to amend campaign reports to reflect actual disbursements and reimbursement, but she said Friday that she had difficulty making the changes to all the reports by the required deadlines.
On another topic, the Ethics Commission’s executive director, Lee Anne Bruce Boone, told commissioners they lacked the authority to increase registration fees for lobbyists last year. In June 2023, commissioners increased the registration fees from $100 to $125. However, commissioners overlooked a state law that states lobbyists are to pay a registration fee of $100. The higher fee affected lobbyists who registered for this year. Those who register again next year will be charged only $75 to make up the difference, and commissioners will look at how to refund those who paid the additional $25 in 2024 but ultimately do not register again in 2025.
As of July 1, 2023, when the new rate took effect, 758 lobbyists registered; 185 were new and 573 were renewals. Boone said her staff will contact the Attorney General’s Office for help in clarifying if the definition of lobbyists also includes lobbyist principals, which are private or public entities that employ or retain another person to lobby, and legislative liaisons, who are state officers or employees who lobby. There are 1,261 lobbyist principals and 176 legislative liaisons registered with the Ethics Commission, Boone said.
Depending on interpretation, she said the refund in fees could range from about $36,000 to nearly $100,000.
Mental health commissioner mum on treatment specifics, Donahue funding gap
Although state leaders rejected a proposed consent decree Oct. 8 to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging unconstitutional delays of mental health competency restoration services, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Commissioner Allie Friesen claimed at a press conference Oct. 10 that her department is making progress in treating jail detainees who have been judged mentally incompetent.
Underscoring concerns about the agency’s transparency, however, Friesen said she could not provide specific details about ODMHSAS’ work with criminal defendants deemed mentally incompetent because of the pending litigation.
“Lawsuit or not, and no matter where we go from this point, the work will continue to improve the quality of services,” Friesen said. “We are continuing to provide as many services as we are legally able to provide at this point, and we’ll continue monitoring the quality of those services and improving them where they need to be improved.”
Friesen said people should “never hear from me that we’ve reached our goal and we don’t need to go any further.”
“No matter what domain of service, if we’re talking criminal justice or crisis care or pediatrics, we should always be doing better,” she said. “So, everything that we have been (doing), within our legal parameters that we can execute on to improve care, we are doing and will continue to do.”
Asked about the number of Oklahoma detainees waiting for competency restoration services — which plaintiff attorneys have said is more than 200 — Friesen declined to discuss specifics.
“I would lump that in under we are improving the quality of care and processes, yes,” she said.
Friesen made her comments during a press conference called to unveil the agency’s new vision, mission and strategic plan. Friesen, who said she was the first mental health commissioner who came from outside the state since 1999, was appointed commissioner by Gov. Kevin Stitt in January and took office in February.
“Every single person that has come before me in this role has had their own priority,” she said. “From where I stand or sit, our patient care has not been a priority in many, many, many years. And I do not mean that disrespectfully. There are different phases, there are different needs in the community at different times.”
Friesen said her agency is “blessed to have a significant budget,” and she said one of her top priorities is using that money to improve state mental health facilities.
“Our facilities have been neglected. There are no words for the environment of care we have allowed our patients and employees to operate within,” she said. “We have sewage that has come through the wall in one of our crisis facilities for years and years and years. We have toilets that do not work in patient care areas so that patients have to line up like kindergartners and go to the bathroom. So, when I say we are making things better, I say we are making things better because none of that should be tolerated, and we should not have any privilege to do anything else until we figure that out.”
Friesen said she is working on building out a system-wide digital infrastructure that will allow the management of safety events in real time. In a six-month period this year, from Jan. 1 to June 15, the agency had 1,044 incidents of employees and health care providers being assaulted.
“There is no world in which I can tolerate 1,044 assaults on employees in a health care setting,” she said. “This has been tolerated, purposely or otherwise, and we’re not doing that anymore.”
Friesen said it is a priority of the agency to keep patients safe.
“We are equipping our staff with the tools they need to be successful,” she said. “We are equipping them with training that goes beyond the standard package of mental health training so that they feel empowered and confident when they enter into these high-risk situations. (…) Patient care always comes first, but we will not have any employees, clinicians or physicians left if we continue to let them be treated this way.”
Asked the status of the delayed Donahue Behavioral Health Hospital, slated to become the state’s primary mental health facility serving central Oklahoma, Friesen said the agency has hired J.E. Dunn Construction as construction manager. The construction company led the recent renovation, repair and restoration of the exterior of the Oklahoma State Capitol.
“We are finally at a point where we have concrete plans, concrete numbers, concrete figures,” Friesen said. “And now it’s a matter of essentially putting a menu in front of the decision makers at the Legislature and in the executive branch to make sure that everybody’s on the same page and so that we can get this done the right way. We are on track.”
The Donahue is deesigned to be a 200,000-square-foot behavioral health facility on the OSU-OKC campus, and it is intended to replace the Griffin Memorial Hospital in Norman, which served as the state’s primary mental health hospital for more than a century.
According to agency documents provided to lawmakers last session, the Donahue was targeted for a December 2026 move-in. Friesen said Thursday that its opening will be pushed back to 2027.
On April 30, legislators asked ODMHSAS officials about the Norman property, which was anticipated to net $50 million when sold. With that $50 million unrealized, Friesen provided legislators with a spreadsheet showing a $78.6 million funding hole for the Donahue hospital.
Asked Thursday if that funding hole had changed, Friesen declined to discuss it.
“Out of respect for the leaders that we have not had a chance to sit down with, I’m not going to give you specifics on numbers,” Friesen said. “When we come back with the figures for the funding gap, we will have a specific opening date as well.”
City of Norman sues library construction companies
Nearly a full year after what was initially intended to be a one-week mold remediation project, the central branch of the Norman Public Library remains shuttered because leaks and mold have plagued the building. Now, the City of Norman has filed a lawsuit against the library’s architects and builders.
Oklahoma-based construction group FlintCo and Oklahoma-based architectural firm ADG Blatt are named as defendants in the lawsuit, which alleges each of the defendants failed to use “the ordinary skill, care and diligence of (…) a reasonably prudent” contractor. Minnesota-based architecture firm Meyer, Scherer and Rockcastle was also named as a defendant, along with 20 John Does who supplied building materials and subcontracted construction work, the names of whom are “not yet known to (the) plaintiff.”
The $39 million building, funded by Norman’s MAPS-like Norman Forward sales tax, opened in November 2019 and closed in November 2023. Norman Parks and Recreation director Jason Olsen said at the time of the building’s closure that his department had been “nonstop chasing leaks” as soon as the building opened. The building’s roof was replaced and windows were resealed annually, but nothing curbed the widespread water intrusion.
In April, Olsen shut down rumors that the library would need to be torn down, but he acknowledged the city does not have enough funding to make the repairs necessary on its own.
“We’re going to need some help getting this building across the finish line,” Olsen told the Norman Public Library Board, adding that the city was entering “a phase of litigation.” The lawsuit was officially filed Oct. 2.
KFOR published excerpts from a report by Norman-based architecture firm McKinney Partnership Architects, which is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Dated September 2018, the report detailed extensive mold growth on the library’s second and third floors prior to it even opening to the public.
“There could be a high probability that the mold could show up after the building is 100 percent enclosed,” the report said.
Pemberton out, Lepak in as Stitt general counsel
On Monday, Gov. Kevin Stitt announced that a new general counsel will replace his current top attorney, Trevor Pemberton.
State Chamber Research Foundation executive director Ben Lepak will join Stitt’s administration as Pemberton approaches his last day on the job Nov. 1. Lepak is the son of state Rep. Mark Lepak (R-OKC) and the brother of State Board of Education member Sarah Lepak.
“It’s an honor to serve my state in this capacity,” Lepak said in a press release. “I’ve long admired the governor’s business acumen and commitment to free market principles. I look forward to helping him advance his top 10 agenda.”
Ben Lepak currently sits on the Statewide Charter School Board, and he was critical of having an attorney from Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s office represent the board at a recent meeting. Typically, state boards can receive legal counsel from the AG’s office or hire their own attorneys, although Drummond successfully sued to block the board’s creation of a Catholic charter school.
At the SCSB’s July 30 meeting, Lepak and other members of the board disagreed with Drummond’s decision to attempt to remove the board’s outside attorney from the role. The board decided at that meeting to continue to retain its outside counsel and pursue a U.S. Supreme Court appeal of the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s June decision to block a potential new Catholic charter school from opening. Lepak voted in favor of both measures. Drummond has been a staunch opponent of the idea of allowing religious charter schools, which are public schools that can be privately run.
Lepak will join an administration steeped in legal questions, such as how Oklahoma should handle jurisdictional questions in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 McGirt decision, which functionally affirmed eastern Oklahoma as a series of Indian Country reservations. Stitt has been critical of the decision and vocal in his calls to overturn it, often angering tribal officials.
“Ben has worked tirelessly in the public and private sectors to advance free market principles,” Stitt said. “I’m excited to add his legal and policy expertise to my team as we continue to make Oklahoma a top 10 state for business.”
It is unclear where Pemberton, who held his position for three years, will go after he leaves the governor’s office. He shared words of faith in the press release announcing his departure.
“Three years ago, I accepted this incredible opportunity out of obedience to the Lord’s call on my life, and I am laying it down all the same,” Pemberton said. “We are called to be strong and courageous, to not be frightened or dismayed; the lord our God is with us wherever we go. Indeed, he has been. May the lord continue to bless this great state and Gov. Kevin Stitt.”
Pemberton has advised Stitt’s office that Lepak will not need to step down from the Statewide Charter School Board, according to Abegail Cave, the governor’s director of communications.
Former OKC councilman Larry McAtee dies
Longtime Oklahoma City Ward 3 City Councilman Larry McAtee died Friday. McAtee, 87, served on the OKC City Council from 2001 to 2021 and became the second-longest-serving member of the council during that time.
McAtee also held positions on numerous boards during his time in city government, including chairing the airport trust, economic development trust and sports facilities oversight board, among others.
OKC Mayor David Holt praised McAtee as the epitome of an elected official.
“Councilman Larry McAtee was a model public servant who connected with his constituents on a personal level to solve problems and seize opportunities,” Holt said. “Though his first priority was always his ward, Larry was also a contributor to the many citywide accomplishments we realized during his two decades of service, including the passage of three MAPS initiatives and the arrival of major league professional sports. We are grateful for his lifetime of service, and we send our deepest condolences to his family.”
Last year, a park in Crystal Lake — just southwest of the Interstate 40 and MacArthur Boulevard intersection — was named after McAtee, who championed neighborhoods and city beautification efforts during his time in office.
“It was an honor to serve the residents of Ward 3 and the City of Oklahoma City for 20 years,” McAtee said at the park dedication, according to a press release. “It was my privilege to serve alongside neighborhood leaders and city staff who were passionate about growing and improving our great city. May God continue to bless the City of Oklahoma City.”
